Embracing
by ultimateform14
Summary: She noticed Grissom only ever used one arm to hug her... That bothered her, a lot. Maybe it shouldn't... but it did.


**At the suggestion of several people, I've gone back to watch CSI from the start. Now... I'm sort of pissed. So much that could have been...**

** But that's how everyone feels, to one extent or another. It's why FanFiction is here.**

** This story assumes that Grissom and Sara didn't take so long to hit it off. You're looking probably at around season two. A year after Sara got there...**

***

Sara blinked as the lights in the hallway came on, automatically. Was it already that late? Or was it because of the season. It was that time of year, after all. When the sun went down earlier and the stars came out faster.

She hated it, usually. So it was to her dismay that she found she was right when she looked out the window, her head automatically turning to the side. The stars were becoming visible. At a rate where she could see each one twinkling into existence as she stared. Behind the thinly-veiled clouds, the moon was beginning to poke through. Listlessly, she wandered to the side of the window and leaned against the cold, hard walls of the LVPD headquarters. The sky reminded her of her own life. Or at least, how she'd felt about her life since she got up that morning. For some reason, everything had just appeared to be so dreary... And it had been a very, very long case. One she'd worked with Warrick. Too bad she hadn't gotten a coworker who was less attentive to detail. For once, she'd actually wanted the obscurity of not being noticed. She had too much rolling around in her mind...

Fortunately, she got the pleasure of turning in the reports. Grissom was waiting, she was sure, on baited breath for her to come strolling around the corner. She could probably see him from where she was if she looked up. She didn't, though. She just sighed... and pretended to flip through the folder in her hand for proficiency's sake as she let her feet carry her in that familiarly-charted direction. She laughed a little, in her mind – she could find her way to Grissom's office in her sleep. She remembered how Catherine had pointed it out once, when the lab had lost power. It had been Catherine's suggestion to go to Grissom, but Sara had been the one to lead them to it.

Even she wondered if that made her pathetic.

And that was before the relationship had started. It had taken a year of beating around the bush, but it had, indeed, started. Finally. It felt like she'd known Grissom for her entire life. He said he felt the same way, even when he first saw her at his entomology lecture. Back around the time, she guessed, he had pegged her for good backup CSI material. How both sad and lucky she had felt when she got the call that his latest addition to the team had died... That wasn't exactly how she wanted something like that to come about. But she still hadn't hesitated to jump on a plane. Leaving behind a man who had been very kind to her... one that looked like better boyfriend material, to many people, she assumed... to come running to Grissom. Spending a ton of money to get everything she needed moved from San Francisco to Las Vegas... She wondered if that was what was bothering her, all day. But, no: if she was honest enough with herself, she knew that wasn't it. It was the OTHER thing...

She rounded the corner into Grissom's office, waving the folder in one hand. "Hey, Gil," she greeted teasingly.

His smile seemed genuine enough when he looked up. "Hello, there."

They exchanged a very brief kiss, Grissom made sure of that. He pulled away quickly, and didn't seem to notice the slight frown flickering across Sara's face. She shook her head, attempting to brush it away.

"I've got the reports," she stated plainly. "I think Warrick did good on this one."

"I hear he had help," said Grissom, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses. "Or, at least, I seem to remember assigning him some."

"You did," confirmed Sara with a toothy grin. "I'm sorry, I was a little out of it today..."

"Yes, I noticed something seemed to be up. Are you quite sure you're alright?"

Sara grinned. THAT was a good sign... "I'm fine. I just... I don't know, I woke up feeling downtrodden this morning."

Grissom paused, and blinked a couple of times, thoughtfully. "Do you need some time?" he asked after a few moments.

"No," Sara's grin faded. "No, I don't need some time. There's nothing... going on, I don't think. I just had a headache when I got up. And the drive felt abnormally slow. And when I got here, Catherine was bitching about something to do with her ex. Just... life happened, and I wasn't liking it, I guess."

Grissom didn't seem to buy it. But she knew enough to know that he wouldn't push. It hadn't taken a relationship status for her to figure THAT out.

"Well, if you do need some time... you'll tell me, right?"

"I promise," she replied. Another grin came out on her face. "You'll be the first to know."

She slid the folder across the desk – remarkably clean and organized, since she'd first gotten her hands on it, a few months ago – to him, and made to stand up and go around the desk to him. It was what he did... and the way it made her feel, as a gut reaction... that confirmed how full of crap she knew she was.

While both of her arms sought almost longingly to wrap around him, only one of his seemed to want to be around her. The other rested somewhat awkwardly on his side, the hand at the end of it holding her forearm down at her own side.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and bared her teeth to the back wall of his office. Er... window.

His grin was no less wide – or rather, as wide as it ever got for Grissom – when he patted her on the shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow, Sara," he said, formally... and slid back into his chair.

She stood there for a moment, half a smile on her cheek. She exhaled, but knew that no matter the situation, he wouldn't take the hint. She turned on her heels and strode the door. Her hand reached out and caught the frame, and she turned back. For half a moment, she thought she had enough nerve to say something about it. But she didn't, really. He didn't even look up from the beetle in the glass jar he was examining. Like it hadn't even registered to him that his girlfriend had stopped in his office doorway.

She waved a hand, as if to say "fuck it", and rolled her eyes. The brisk sound of her shoes clicking on the hallway should have betrayed her desire to get away from him. _If he were anyone else, it would have..._ she mused coldly.

She reached the locker room, but heard the sound of someone inside, talking on a cell phone. She stopped short of it to lean back on the wall. It bothered her. She knew it was stupid, but it bothered her. And it had all day, since he'd stopped by to drop off breakfast for her. She wondered if he just pretended to forget that she was a vegetarian...

Try as she might, she couldn't not be reminded of her father. Her father had not hugged her very often. But when he had, it had been exactly the same way Grissom did: one arm... and the other ensuring that she could only use one. It was like they'd both had a fear of physical contact with her, or something. And like they prepared only one part of their body to tolerate it, too – at least in Grissom's case, although she couldn't remember her father's... it was always the same arm that he used to hug her, and always the same he used to partially restrain her.

She was beyond crying, thankfully. Not beyond gritting her teeth, and banging the side of her fist on the wall behind her, though. "Ugh!" she let out in frustration.

"Alright, then, sweet pea. I love you, too."

She straightened up. Nick. It was Nick in the locker room, on his cell phone. Probably with some woman he'd only known for a week... Even so, she couldn't help a slight smile that crept on her face. If this morning was any example, she knew she wouldn't be having this problem with Nick. She therefore didn't hesitate to round the corner into the locker room. Just in time to see him hanging up and dropping the phone in his pocket.

"Hey, there, Sunshine," he greeted her immediately with. "Ready to go home."

She stopped, and looked him up and down. He was standing there, a shirt in one hand and a paper card in the other. His warm smile and shining eyes were turned toward her with enthusiasm. Like he was happy to see her...

It took her over the edge.

Furiously blinking to try to fight the tears that began to form in her eyes, she stumbled forward against his warm body and clenched her arms tightly around his neck. Both arms, like she had that morning when she'd called him to see if he could give her a ride to work when her car had done something strange and refused to start.

And like that morning, he returned her embrace, with both arms, as well.

"Hey, hey, hey..." he said softly, hands rubbing up and down her back. "What's the matter, darlin'? What's wrong...?"

She shook her head and continued to cry on his shoulder. For a few minutes, just reveling in the sensation that he didn't push her away. Or act shocked... upset, in any way... that she was so close to him. Thankfully, she did not make any noises. Just quietly cried, shakily.

She calmed down quickly, though. He lifted her off her feet and situated them both on the bench between the lockers. She took some deep breaths, steadying herself and tightly holding on to Nick's wrist.

"I'm sorry," she said after a couple of minutes. "Sorry, I just... it wasn't a good day."

"You don't say?" he answered, leaning his head on hers. "What happened?"

She sighed, and used both hands to clear away her face. "This morning... well, it's just been one thing after another. I was... thinking about home, back in San Francisco. My friends at the old lab. My ex... or, sort of ex, I suppose." She looked up at him, asking for understanding with her eyes. "You know the feeling, right? Like, you're happy where you're at. But sometimes, you just wonder where you could be."

His eyes flickered between hers. "Yes..." he answered. "I'm sorry, I thought you were a bit happier here than that, though."

She laughed a couple of times. "I am. Don't take me the wrong way. I just..." But she stopped, and blinked again to fight off the newly-forming tears. "I just can't help thinking, did I make a mistake? I mean, Grissom is... so detached, you know? And Catherine... she's great, but sometimes she makes me crazy. Greg never knows when to stop. Brass is so hard..." She regained control of herself and brushed her face off with her fingers. "I mean, I know in this line of work, I shouldn't expect everyone to behave like a show on _Hallmark_, but for God's sakes."

Nick nodded with a couple laughs of his own. "Believe me, honey, I know exactly what you mean." He stood up and dug through his locker for something. "I was just on the phone with my niece, and she was telling me I should work somewhere with people who are more respectful of the way I am."

A short stab of regret poked Sara in the heart. So, he HADN'T been on the phone with some whore he'd hooked up with last weekend...

"You know, emotional," he continued. "I get tired of being criticized for having empathy for people. It's just how I am..." He pulled his shirt down over his head and threw the lab uniform he'd been wearing in the community hamper behind him. When he spoke again, he began shoving things from his locker into the duffel bag with a little more force than necessary. "And I know exactly what you mean about Grissom. As long as I've been working here, I've been listening to it. I just heard it today, in fact."

She wasn't really listening anymore. Watching him get impassioned about something was too much fun. She leaned forward on her hands and let a slight grin replace her previously-distraught expression.

"My case today was about a woman who was being beaten by her husband. Grissom wrote me up for pinning the man against a wall when he pulled her hair the their house, today. Said I should have let the police handle it." He slammed his locker closed.

Sara straightened up. "What?"

"Oh, yeah," said Nick. "Yeah... The bastard grabbed her by the hair while I was dusting for prints. The responding officer was a whole two steps or so farther than I was. I knocked him way from her and pushed his hands up against the wall. Apparently, that was over-stepping." He shook his head and reached for his baseball cap, having not looked at her once throughout this retelling of the day's events. "'Nick, our jacket says forensics,' he tells me. Like I don't know that. 'But Grissom, the man was beating her. There were huge bruises on her face and arms when I got there,' I try explaining."

Sara's lower lip trembled. There was already a single tear making its way down his face. "Nicky..."

"'I understand that. But the law doesn't care. And when you do things like that, you make the whole night shift team look bad.'" He again shook his head, and sat down again to put his shoes on. "Thanks a lot, Grissom."

There came a silence between them. Sara watched with her mouth slightly open as the man in front of her jammed his feet into his shoes and roughly began tying the laces. But his fingers were shaky, and his jaw was set in a very hard line. She let her own fingers go slowly to the side of his neck.

"Nick."

He exhaled prominently, and looked up to her. "Yes?"

"Let me do that for you. You need to relax..."

She caught the smile before she dropped to one knee on the floor and finished tying his shoes for him. Deftly enough, but she made a lot more progress than he had in a lot less time.

When she looked up, his smile grew. "Thank you much." He rubbed the side of her arm with his thumb. "And now it's my turn to apologize."

Her eyebrows came together. "What?"

"Well, you came in here feeling bad and crying and all that..." He stood up, taking her hand and bringing her with. "It's customary when a friend is feeling down for the other friend to be comforting. Not to bombard them with sad tales of their own lives." And with that, he pulled her into another hug. "So, I'm sorry."

It took her a moment, but she did return it. She shook her head, a bit. Thoroughly amused by how much of a gentleman he always managed to be...

"Are you ready to go home?" he asked after a moment.

She meant to just say that she was, but after a sigh, what came out of her mouth was: "Not really. Can't we just stay here, like this?"

***

On the other side of the hug, he grinned... all his teeth shining through his lips. He tightened his hold on her with both arms. "I wish we could, but we have to be back here in the morning, honey. And assuming this schedule we been on, where people only commit gruesome murders when the sun is up, continues... we'll want to sleep through the night."

She pulled back and rolled her eyes in mock acceptance. "Oh, alright..." she bantered with rolling eyes. "If you say so."

It didn't take her long to gather her things. She was a far more efficient traveler than most men he knew. Including himself. The duffel bag in his left hand suddenly felt a little heavy...

They walked through the halls bundled up in their coats, hand-in-hand. Past the DNA lab, where poor Greg would be working for hours longer than they did. Past the materials lab, where Catherine was looking over some notes in one hand and arguing with Lindsey on her cell phone in the other. Past video and surveillance, where Warrick was talking videos with a technician Nick didn't recognize. Doc was in the break room with David. Brass was pacing the halls by the door, having a heated discussion of some kind with two of the officers there. Nick could see that one of them had been on his domestic abuse case that afternoon...

Grissom was buried in his bugs and bug books when they went past him.

Sara shook her head with exasperation, then let it fall against Nick's shoulder. He, in turn, let his hand walk its way up to hers... and pulled her against him more securely before they stepped out through the front door.

The sight of the rain falling immediately pissed him off. "Goddamn it!" he exclaimed. Sara jumped, and immediately, he felt bad. "Oh, sorry...! Sorry, I just... the rain..."

"Yeah, no, right. I get it. Just, you scared me, that's all."

"Sorry," he apologized again. "Wait here, I'm gonna go run and get the car. I'll bring it up over here so you won't have to get so wet. I'll be right back."

"Nick!"

But her voice was lost in the sound of the heavy rain falling on the pavement.

Locating his car turned out to be a five minute affair. The problem was, every vehicle looked the same as it was in the daylight. At night, with a blinding flurry of rain everywhere he looked, it was even worse. When his frozen hands finally locked on the edge of his door handle, he was very wet. Soaked through, actually. He shivered for a few moments in the driver's seat – the rain was so ice cold, it was biting him.

Sara was squinting in his direction when the car pulled up by her. He leaned across the seat and pushed the passenger's side open for her. She sprinted down the steps and jumped into it.

"Th-th-there," he stuttered out. "Trus-trust me, you don't w-want t-t-to be out in th-the rain. It's so cold..."

"I can tell. I was going to suggest waiting till it calmed down a bit, but you took off without me into the parking lot."

"You n-need to g-get h-ho-home. You're-you're tired. Y-y-you need t-to sl-sleep."

For a few minutes, she didn't say anything. He set off driving in her direction with the heat turned up. His fingers quivered on the steering wheel on his left hand, and on his right resting on seat beside him. He clenched his jaw down tightly to stop the chattering teeth.

Warmer fingers suddenly covered his own, and a head of soft, dark red hair came to lay on his shoulder. "If you get sick just for me, Nick, I'll feel bad."

It felt like the weakness that was spreading from his hand and shoulder where she'd touched him was a living creature that slowly lapped its way around his body before settling down for a nap. Nick pictured a cat in front of a fire. It brought a grin to his face and a witty response to his mouth. "Bad enough you'll have to kill me?"

He thought she'd laugh, but she just gripped his arm with her other hand and shook her head. "No," she said. Her voice sounded almost broken. "Never..."

The grin was soon replaced by a much more somber expression... and he leaned the side of his head down on top of hers while they drove.

It was kind of hard to stay awake that way, with the heat blowing from the vents on them both. And Sara, caressing his hand with her fingers... But when they reached her place, he parked as close to the door as he could.

"What are you doing?" she asked, when he made to open the door.

"I'm getting you inside," he answered. And then, knowing she was about to protest, he added, "I'm doing it, Sara. I'm not letting you walk out here alone. Come on."

"I'm not a baby," she fake whined, but there was a definite upturn in her lips as she accepted his hand and climbed down from the car.

"Certainly not. But it IS cold and wet out here. Let's go."

At the door, she struggled with the keys for a moment. Nick's felt his lips twitching as he watched her annoyance. It was cute.

But when it finally came open, they almost fell through on to the floor. He caught the edge of the table by the door with one hand, and her with the other. Righting themselves, they began laughing.

By the time they were done, she had made her way to laying her head on him again. The sound of his watch beeping to announce the hour reminded them of the time.

Nick sighed. He hadn't had so much fun in such a while. It almost hurt to place both hands on Sara's arms and guide her two steps back away from him. Or maybe that was just the pain in his ribs from laughing...

Sara was staring at him. "Thank you," she said, simply. "For the ride. For listening. For... everything. I needed it, Nicky."

That feeling came to rest in his chest again. Like he'd just reinvented the wheel by making her feel better. He grinned again, pleased with himself. "Any time." And just as quickly as it came, it also faded. He reached out and played with the edges of her hair. "And Sara, when you're feeling bad about something, don't just keep it all locked up inside. Come find me, or give me a call. Send me a text message, whatever you want. We can do this again, you know. You don't have to deal with all this alone. You don't have to be alone..."

She closed her eyes and gripped the front of his coat.

"You don't have to be alone," he repeated in a whisper.

For a moment, her eyes fluttered open, and she just stared again.

Then she crossed her welcome mat in a single step and pressed her lips lightly against his. Just once... and her fingertips – placed softly across the side of his lips and down his chin – sent a single chill throughout him that culminated in the back of his head, and made him close his eyes...

"I'll remember that," she answered softly, not moving back away from him.

He smiled against her lips. "You be sure to do that. I'll have my phone with me. If you need anything... call me. Anything at all..."

He stroked her hair and the side of her face once, and then turned to go back through the rain and to his truck. But at the doorway, he stopped and looked back. She was watching him go with her index finger up by her lip, and a wider smile than he'd seen her wear since he'd picked her up that morning.

Which reminded him... "Need another ride tomorrow?"

"I don't know," she answered.

For a moment, his face fell in just the slightest of ways.

"But, I want one, Nicky... If you don't mind, that is..."

Like a little kid who had just been handed a bag of candy, his face lit up. "See you at seven, then! Assuming nobody dies tonight..."

She laughed. "Is it bad I kind of hope someone does? Seven in the morning is long time away..."

"Yes," he answered at once. "But don't worry, I'm thinking the same thing."

She again laughed. "Alright, that's better. See you tomorrow, Nick."

"See you." She disappeared behind the door as he closed it. "Sara..."

He meant to wait till he was in his truck to jump and whoop, but he didn't make it. He banged his head against the side of the truck coming down.

His hand clutched at it reflexively. "Ow!" he exclaimed. But it didn't deter his happiness.

Smile still in place, he climbed into the truck. Still warm, and still smelling like Sara... With a click of his tongue, he started it and backed out of the driveway. His own place wasn't too far from there.

It was at the first stoplight that he got the text from Grissom.

With no more than the initial thought to the lost night's sleep that it took for him to realize the situation, he made a left turn instead of a right. He could get back to Sara quicker that way.

***

**Sorry, folks – I tried writing a few (unpublished, and likely to stay that way) stories pairing Nick and Sara up with other people, but it just didn't do it for me. I'm a "Snicker".**

** I realize this couple became a thing back when the show was younger, and questions like who was going to fall in love with who were still a lot more up in the air. CBS are really good at giving fans fuel to believe anything could happen, in any situation... Still are, actually.**

** But I kind of missed the original CSI bandwagon. So, I do apologize if my stories and character preferences seem "outdated" to some readers, or if they've all been done before and the like. But I'm still going to write them down, anyway. And post them, most likely. Because I still enjoy doing so... and hey, again, that's what FanFiction is for! And there's bound to be people who enjoy reading them, regardless. Every story has its audience, after all...**

** And even though I know what's going to happen in the show when I watch older episodes now, it doesn't mean I enjoy CBS' characters and their situations any less. So, I wrote this up when it came into my head after I got off work on Friday at six the morning. A friend came to pick me up, and when she hugged me, this sort of sprang to life in my mind.**


End file.
